PetitionPace

Editorial standards

How we write, fact-check, and date-stamp everything we publish.

What we publish

PetitionPace publishes three types of general information:

  • Filing fees — sourced from the official USCIS Form G-1055 fee schedule and verified against individual form pages at uscis.gov
  • Processing-time ranges — sourced from the USCIS processing-times tool (egov.uscis.gov/processing-times), reviewed periodically and clearly date-stamped
  • Form descriptions — plain-English summaries of what common USCIS forms are, sourced from official USCIS form pages

What we do not publish

We deliberately do not publish:

  • Eligibility assessments or recommendations ("you should file X")
  • Predictions about your specific case outcome
  • Form preparation assistance or legal strategy
  • Advice about how to respond to an RFE or NOID
  • Any content that could constitute the unauthorized practice of law

The DATA-GATE: verified vs. estimate

Every data point in our system carries a verified flag. We set this to true only when we have confirmed the figure against an official USCIS source and believe it is current. Unverified processing-time estimates are:

  • Clearly labeled as estimates
  • Tagged with a "noindex" robots meta tag (search engines do not index them)
  • Excluded from our sitemap
  • Always accompanied by a link to the live official USCIS tool

How we review data

We review all data when we become aware of USCIS fee-schedule changes, when USCIS announces form changes, and on a periodic basis. Every data record includes a reviewedDate field that is visible on the page. We bump this date only when we have actually confirmed the data against a current official source — not simply because time has passed.

Our UPL red line

The unauthorized practice of law (UPL) is the provision of legal services by someone not licensed to do so. To stay clearly on the right side of UPL, PetitionPace enforces a hard policy:

  • We never assess a user's eligibility for any immigration benefit
  • We never recommend a specific form for a specific user's situation
  • We never prepare, fill in, or review forms on a user's behalf
  • We never collect case-specific personal information (tools run locally, no PII transmitted)
  • Every tool and every form page carries an explicit UPL disclaimer